December 2005 THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER Sequential page 2895 HUGH WALKER AND NORTH CAROLINAS SMALLPOX CURRENCY OF 1779 by R. Neil Fulghum; Chapel Hill, NC Copyright © 2005 by The American Numismatic Society A few miles outside of Salem, North Carolina, on the rainy morning of April 26, 1779, a mixed company of infantry, cavalry, support personnel, and four supply wagons under the command of Major Pierre Vernier halted.1 Vernier hesitated to proceed and enter the small town. As part of Americas struggling Continental army, he and his tired, weathered soldiers preferred to seek relief among citizens who clearly supported their fight against Great Britain, or at least among those who did not openly oppose it. The cautious officer had heard from persons on the road that Salems inhabitants harbored Tory or pro-English sentiments and might object to his mens presence.2 Vernier therefore ordered one of his captains and two other subordinates to ride ahead to visit the town and assess its mood and suspected loyalties. Returning from Salem a short time later, the advance party allayed the majors concerns, reporting that the well-ordered communitys dear people would provide the company with whatever we need. 3 The party confirmed, too, that Salem was populated and governed by Moravians, a highly devout sect of German Protestants who had settled the town thirteen years earlier. Reassured by his mens reconnaissance, Vernier now gauged it safe to approach Salem. The Moravians, after all, were recognized as adherents to a strict code of personal conduct, one defined by Scripture and guided daily by the virtues of piety, industry, charity, and pacifism. Politically, the Moraviansalso known as the Unitas Fratrum (United Brethren)regarded themselves as bystanders or neutrals in the armed conflict between Britain and its thirteen defiant colonies. While some elders of the United Brethren were known to hold sympathies for King George III, Moravian congregations as a whole rejected outright any notion that they should level their muskets against either side in the Revolution.4 1. A native of Belfort, France, Major Pierre Jean François Vernier (1737-1780) of Pulaskis Legion is identified as Major Verrier in Moravian records. See Adelaide L. Fries (ed.), Records of the Moravians in North Carolina, volume 3 (Raleigh: North Carolina State Department of Archives and History, 1968 reprint), 1300. In military references about this legion, the spelling and form of the majors name vary considerably. He is listed as Peter Verney, Vernie, Peter J. F., Major Paul Vernier, and Jean-François Vernier in such works. See Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During the War of the Revolution, April, 1775 to December, 1783 (Washington, D.C.: Heitman, 1893), 411; Gilbert Bodinier, Les Officiers de lArmée royale, combattants de la guerre dIndépendance des Etats-Unis de Yorktown à lan II (Vincennes: Service historique de lArmée de terre, 1983), 268; and Gilbert Bodinier, Dictionnaire des officiers de lArmée royale qui ont combattu aux Etats-Unis pendant la guerre dIndépendance, 1776-1783 (Vincennes: Service historique de lArmée de terre, 1982), 473. Also refer to Francis C. Kajencki, Casimir Pulaski: Cavalry Commander of the American Revolution (El Paso, Texas: Southwest Polonia Press, 2001), 103. It should be noted that the Moravians regularly recorded weather conditions in and around Salem. For April 26, 1779, they state, Last night there was a thunder-storm with rain which continued this morning (Fries, Records of Moravians,1300). 2. Fries, Records of Moravians, 1282. 3. Fries, Records of Moravians, 1283. 4. The Moravians refusal to participate militarily in the American Revolution alienated patriots and loyalists alike. Over time, North Carolinas Moravians gradually yielded to secular needs and to the state governments requirements that all towns train and equip local militias. In 1831, Salem formed its own light infantry company, and thirty years later some Salem residents enlisted to fight for the Confederacy. See Leszek Szymanski, Casimir Pulaski: A Hero of the American Revolution (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994), 179; Janet Fox, Winston-Salem: A Cooperative Spirit (Montgomery, Alabama: Community Communications, 1994), 25; and Adelaide L. Fries and Douglas LeTell Rights (eds.), Records of the Moravians of North Carolina, volume 8 (Raleigh: North Carolina State Department of Archives and History, 1954), 3960, 3969, 3982. December 2005 THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER Sequential page 2896 Upon entering Salem near mid-day on the 26th, a Monday, Major Vernier informed town leaders that after a brief stay he and his troops planned to resume their journey toward South Carolina. Military records indicate that Verniers force, described as a large detachment by the Moravians, numbered approximately 160 men.5 These soldiers comprised part of the Pulaski Legion, which had its recruitment headquarters in Maryland, but for the past seven months had been deployed principally in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.6 Earlier, in March 1778, at the time the Continental Congress authorized the legions formation, officials had specified its size and composition. They instructed the legions leader, Brigadier General Casimir Pulaski, to raise an independent Corps ... of sixty-eight Horse and two hundred Foot, the Horse to be armed with Lances, the Foot equipped in the Manner of Light Infantry.7 With this congressional license in hand, Pulaski had spent the spring and summer of 1778 recruiting and rigorously training American-born colonists, fellow Polish volunteers, some French and Italian enlistees, and other European émigrés. Germans accounted for the largest percentage of the 336 troops who ultimately filled the rolls of Pulaskis Legion, including a significant number of Hessian mercenaries who had fled British service.8 In fact, Salems record keepers described Major Vernier, a forty-two-year-old Alsatian, as a French-German and categorized most of the men in his company as Germans from many lands.9 Those particular troops must have felt a degree of added comfort and cultural familiarity when they began to mingle and converse easily with the German-speaking residents of Salem. Simultaneous with the arrival of Verniers company in Salem, another contingent of Pulaskis legionnaires was bypassing the Moravian settlement, opting to march further down in the State toward South Carolina.10 The travel of that unit through North Carolinas piedmont and the movement of Verniers men through the region were part of a much larger repositioning of American forces by the Continental armys commander-in-chief, George Washington. Washingtons transfer of troops to the South in the first half of 1779 intended to counter the British militarys shift in strategy of focusing less on New York, Massachusetts, and other northern targets to attacking more areas in South Carolina and Georgia, mainly around Charleston and Savannah.11 Vernier and his men remained in Salem for four days. They rested, repaired their uniforms and equipment, and enjoyed several meals in which the main courses were hefty cuts of ox meat purchased from the town. Most of the men also took the opportunity in the evenings to attend 5. Fries, Records of Moravians, 1282, 1300. The exact number of men in Major Verniers combined Company is not known. Any military units size can fluctuate dramatically, especially in wartime when casualties, disease, desertions, and transfers continually affect its strength. Traditionally, a single company can range in size from a light company of as few as sixty soldiers to a heavy company of nearly 200 men. Pulaskis Legion consisted of general staff, three cavalry troops, and five infantry companies. Based on payroll accounts, the entire legion numbered 336 soldiers by March 1779, so all of its units were quite small. On average, each Pulaski company contained only thirty-seven soldiers; each cavalry troop, forty-six lancers or dragoons. Moravian records describe Verniers force as a Company of Cavalry, but other references identify the major as the leader of Pulaskis infantry corps during the legions trek southward. The force that entered Salem was clearly a mixture of mounted troops and foot soldiers, who would have comprised about half the legion. See Kajencki, Pulaski, 123-26, 168; Szymanski, Hero of the American Revolution, 246, 252. 6. Kajencki, Pulaski, 62, 84-119. 7. Szymanski, Hero of the American Revolution, 166. 8. Kajencki, Pulaski, 62-72, 114-15; Szymanski, Hero of the American Revolution, 171-73, 246. 9. Fries, Records of Moravians, 1300. 10. Fries, Records of Moravians, 1300. 11. David Lee Russell, The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies (Jefferson, N.C., and London: McFarland & Company, 2000), 97-98. December 2005 THE COLONIAL NEWSLETTER Sequential page 2897 religious services presented by their hosts, who were impressed by the soldiers discipline and polite behavior.12 The only notable incident during this time was one that did not directly involve Salems citizens. Early on Wednesday, April 28, Major Vernier formally punished two of the companys baggage-handlers. Charged with theft and desertion, the pair was forced to run a gauntlet of legionnaires in the front yard of the [Single] Brothers House. There troops whipped them with stirrup-straps until both men fully confessed the details of their alleged crimes.13 Two days later, when Vernier and all of his soldiers departed Salem, they carried with them fresh provisions and no doubt a few lasting impressions of the Moravians hospitality and righteous lifestyle. Unfortunately, someone within the companys ranks had left something behind in Salem, something that soon would seriously affect everyone there: smallpox. Moravian records note that during Verniers stopover in Salem one of the legionnaires who recently had small-pox had been quarantined in a tent erected near the towns tavern. 14 In all likelihood, either that recovering soldier or a comrade in an earlier stage of infection introduced the disease to the community. Salems brothers and sisters had no uncertainties about its source.